Theological ethics of H. Richard Niebuhr

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to give a critical exposition of the theological and ethical thought of H. Richard Nlebuhr (1894-1962). After a brief introduction to "the man and his work" (Chapter I) the theoretical structure of his thought is set forth. A relational theory of value centering on the concept of "the center of value" (Chapter II) and a relational theory of action centering on the concept of "responsibility" (Chapter III) are distinguished and described. Two main criticisms of the relational theory of value are offered. First, it is argued that an unexceptionally relational theory of value is Incompatible with Niebuhr's primary theological interest in maintaining the absolute priority and Independence of the being and value of God to all contingent being and value. Second, it is argued that Niebuhr's radically monotheistic value theory need not entail (as he thinks it does) the complete relativity of all finite values and value systems. There is nothing in his relational theory as such that requires the prohibition of normative ethical principles so necessary for providing guidance for moral decision making. Furthermore, this prohibition seems to be contradicted by other statements made by Nlebuhr, and it is also inconsistent with his advocacy of such principles for the construction of a viable Protestant ethic.Niebuhr developed his relational theory of moral agency—the theory of "responsibility"—by way of a comparative analysis of teleological and deontological ethics. His chief dissatisfaction with these two traditional ways of conceiving human moral agency lay at the point of the view of man which each presupposes. Both theories accept a view of man that is too individualistic, nonhistorical and intellectualistic. The theory of responsibility accredits itself as a more adequate conceptual scheme insofar as it embodies a view of man that avoids these defects. Beyond this, according to Niebuhr, both teleological and deontological theorists understand the primary moral relation to be between the self-as-will and previously cognized moral principles, rules or demands. For the ethics of responsibility, on the other hand, the Tightness or wrongness of specific moral actions is not determined by universal moral principles or norms, but by the self's "Interpretation" of the objective moral character of that infinite Being upon which the self and all finite beings are absolutely dependent.Both Niebuhr's relational theory of value and of action deny any place for general moral principles or rules in a theological ethic. The absence of such rules or principles is directly related to, and in part occasioned by, his understanding of the limitations Imposed on all knowledge of God by his acceptance of 1) a modified version of Kant's distinction between theoretical and practical reason and of 2) the historically relative character of all knowledge (Chapter IV).In the final chapter two theological principles are identified which structure Niebuhr's ethics. The principle of "radical monotheism" and the principle of "transformation" or "conversion" represent Niebuhr's positive answer to two questions that must be asked and answered by any ethic that makes a serious claim to be a theological ethic. First, "How is God known, and what may be known of him?" Second, "What are the consequences of this knowledge for understanding and ordering moral experience and action?" Both questions are explored further by means of a critical analysis of an important essay in which Nlebuhr deals with each. The answer which he gives to the first question raises two other critical issues.First, it is argued that Niebuhr falls to maintain the priority of the being and value of God to all human being and value—a failure which he himself argued was the major weakness of all post-Kantian liberal theologies—so long as he also maintains that a sufficient criterion for distinguishing experience of God from experience of any other being is the satisfaction of the constitutive human need to know that life is worth living. When Niebuhr stresses the relational and valuatlonal aspects of his religious eplstemology, his description of knowledge of God is anthropomorphic. On the other hand, when he addresses himself to the question of what it means to affirm that God reveals himself in historical events, he so stresses the objectivity and otherness of God that his description of knowledge of God is agnostic. It this is the case, then the legitimacy, or at least the adequacy of the "personal-encounter" model of revelation is called in question.Finally, attention is given to Nlebuhr's description of the transformation that all our natural religion and morality undergo as a result of receiving the gift of radical faith in the one God present in all events. Revelation is that event through which the self is given a new image of God as an absolute unity of power and goodness by means of which 1t is enabled progressively to reinterpret all the events of its individual and social existence, past, present and future, as related in a meaningful universe.